She always leaves her home in the Little Valley area of St. George with two or three empty plastic bags. When she returns about 45 minutes later, they are full of roadside trash.

“We have such a beautiful neighborhood — this whole area is so beautiful — it just breaks my heart to see people throw trash out,” she says Tuesday morning at the beginning of her daily walk. “This is not our land. God gave it to us as caretakers.”

“This is not our land. God gave it to us as caretakers.”

-&nbspLinda Goduto

It begins the moment she leaves her home. She rarely walks more than 25 or 30 feet without bending over to pick up a scrap of paper or a plastic water bottle. Larger items are set aside with a mental note to stop and pick them up on the way back or later with her car.

Near the corner of 2450 South and River Road, Goduto stoops down and picks up a metal fastener, mentioning how she occasionally finds hardware to bring home to her husband, Tom.

“Tom gets a little fearful for me,” she admits as cars fly by on River Road during the morning commute.

Linda Goduto uses her morning walks to keep her St. George neighborhood clean.

Linda Goduto uses her morning walks to keep her St. George neighborhood clean.

Brian Passey / The Spectrum & Daily News

Her efforts have left battle scars, but not from passing cars. Pulling trash out of weeds and other hard-to-reach places has left scratches and bruises on her arms.

As she walks, Goduto talks about her family and how she met her husband two decades ago. She was living in her native Tennessee while he was in the Florida panhandle. When they decided to marry, she moved to Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, where she was able to find employment as a surgical nurse.

Goduto says she rarely finds money on her walks but she once picked up a couple of $1 bills. Moments later, while cleaning up the parking lot around a small commercial area on River Road, she spies a coin on the asphalt.

“Found a penny! Heads up!” she exclaims. “That’s good luck. I always pick up pennies, even if they’re tails.”

Linda Goduto picks up litter Tuesday morning near the corner of 2330 South and River Road in St. ...more

Linda Goduto picks up litter Tuesday morning near the corner of 2330 South and River Road in St. George.

Brian Passey / The Spectrum & Daily News

Soon it’s time to turn around and head home. For the return trip she takes the opposite side of the road to cover more ground. As she scans the curb and gutter for litter, Goduto talks about moving to Southern Utah.

After having to evacuate three times during one Florida hurricane season, the Godutos began looking for a part of the country where natural disasters weren't common but neither were snow and ice. That’s how they found St. George nearly 12 years ago.

They specifically chose the Little Valley area because they wanted a neighborhood with families, not just retirees. In fact, they’ve become “adopted parents and grandparents” for many of the young families who live along their street. Following her example, some of these families now go out and pick up litter near their homes, she says.

However, Goduto doesn’t just monitor her own neighborhood. While that’s her focus, she notices other locations around town where roadside trash accumulates, like a spot near Interstate 15’s Brigham Road exit.

“I just ache to stop my car and get that pile,” she says.

Occasionally she will return to these areas where trash builds up. She parks her car and hits the streets, armed, as usual, with a few plastic bags.

After 52 years in nursing, Goduto still works as a pre-op nurse at Coral Desert Surgery Center in St. George. Now 72, she recently moved from full-time work to part-time but she hasn’t slowed down on her morning walks. After all, she says doctors are always worried about older people getting enough exercise.

“I figure it’s good exercise just to bend over,” she says.

Linda Goduto picks up litter Tuesday morning on the corner of 2450 East and River Road in St. ...more

Linda Goduto picks up litter Tuesday morning on the corner of 2450 East and River Road in St. George.

Brian Passey / The Spectrum & Daily News

Goduto collects so much trash that passers-by often notice. A number of times people have stopped and offered to take her full trash bags to the dump.

A couple of blocks from her home, a fellow morning walker passes and says, “I appreciate what you do.”

“She doesn’t expect any applause or accolades. She’s such a good example of community service.”

-&nbspBoyd Adams, neighbor

That’s part of why Goduto continues to pick up litter on these walks. It not only makes her neighborhood prettier, it also inspires others to follow her example. But it doesn’t work if everybody simply thinks that someone else will do it, she says.

Sue Adams is among the neighbors who follow Goduto’s example. Her husband, Boyd Adams, told The Spectrum & Daily News about Goduto and her litter clean-up efforts.

“She doesn’t expect any applause or accolades,” he says. “She’s such a good example of community service.”

Goduto says she’s simply doing her little part to keep her neighborhood clean. People don’t even have to go out and pick up trash to help, she says. If they simply stop throwing garbage out of their cars, there wouldn’t be anything to pick up.

“It’s not leaving a very good message to our children or a good environment for them,” she says of the littering problem.